Hulk [M]

It would have been thought that working with an ex girlfriend would be an emotionally uncomfortable experience, but for scientist Bruce Banner, it’s much worse. Emotionally bottled-up by nature, a freak science experiment exposes Bruce to a large amount of gamma radiation, which should have resulted in his death. But the exposure ends up unleashing Bruce’s inner demons as well as his breathtaking anger management issues caused by repressed memories of his childhood. The horror soon becomes worse when Bruce’s unstable biological father re-enters his life, making him very, very angry. 

I never got into any of the Marvel comics phenomenon and in my opinion, the Hulk has always been a camp science fiction comic book version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Director Ang Lee here created a comic book movie, favouring the split screen effect, which I thought to be the only intriguing thing about the project. Ultimately, I found this movie to be somewhat boring and the so-called “monster” rather tame and laughable. Having said that it could have been the tame special effects that went into the transformation of the Hulk, but this still doesn’t sway my conclusion. 

It would have been thought that working with an ex girlfriend would be an emotionally uncomfortable experience, but for scientist Bruce Banner, it’s much worse. Emotionally bottled-up by nature, a freak science experiment exposes Bruce to a large amount of gamma radiation, which should have resulted in his death. But the exposure ends up unleashing Bruce’s inner demons as well as his breathtaking anger management issues caused by repressed memories of his childhood. The horror soon becomes worse when Bruce’s unstable biological father re-enters his life, making him very, very angry. 

The story itself puts forward some very good ideas regarding the dichotomy of the power caused by physical and emotional trauma. The entire Hulk think is just a physical example of the strength of rage, desperation, and fear. 

The editing of the movie was very interesting though, using the split screen multiple times to create the layout of the comic book page. I have to admit that I did enjoy that very much. I would also like to applaud the performance of Nick Nolte who plays Banner’s unstable father. His climactic power-hungry freak out was most engaging: gripping, dramatic, and somewhat comic. 

Starring Eric Bana, Jennifer Connelly, Sam Elliott, Kevin Rankin, and Josh Lucas, Hulk was an ok movie. Filled with some action, lots of drama, some interesting special effects and editing techniques, and a comic monster, it’s a movie that I just found to be nothing special.